Case

Title
CONCEPCION ILAO-ORETA, Petitioner, vs.
SPOUSES EVA MARIE and BENEDICTO NOEL RONQUILLO, Respondents.
Fast Facts:
1. 1. Respondents, spouses Eva Marie Ronquillo (Eva Marie) and Noel Benedicto (Noel) Ronquillo (the Ronquillo spouses or
the spouses), had not been blessed with a child despite several years of marriage. They thus consulted petitioner, Dr.
Concepcion Ilao-Oreta (Dr. Ilao-Oreta), an obstetrician-gynecologist-consultant at the St. Luke’s Medical Center.
2. 2. Eva Marie agreed to undergo a laparoscopic procedure to know why she’s infertile.
3. 3. The procedure was scheduled on April 5, 1999 at 2:00 p.m., to be performed by Dr. Ilao-Oreta.
4. 4. Spouses arrived 7am. She underwent pre-operative procedures.
5. 5. The doctor arrived 10pm. She came from honeymoon in Hawaii.
6. 6. Ronquillo spouses filed a complaint against Dr. Ilao-Oreta and the St. Luke’s Medical Center for breach of professional
and service contract and for damages before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Batangas City.
7. 7. They prayed for the award of actual damages including alleged loss of income of Noel while accompanying his wife to
the hospital, moral damages, exemplary damages, the costs of litigation, attorney’s fees, and other available reliefs and
remedies.
8. 8. In her Answer, Dr. Ilao-Oreta gave her side of the case as follows: She went on a honeymoon to Hawaii and was
scheduled to leave Hawaii at 3:00 p.m. of April 4, 1999 for Manila. Aware that her trip from Hawaii to Manila would take
about 12 hours, inclusive of a stop-over at the Narita Airport in Japan, she estimated that she would arrive in Manila in
the early morning of April 5, 1999. She thus believed in utmost good faith that she would be back in Manila in time for
the scheduled conduct of the laparoscopic procedure. She failed to consider the time difference between Hawaii and the
Philippines, however.
9. 9. In its Answer, the St. Luke’s Medical Center contended that the spouses have no cause of action against it since it
performed the pre-operative procedures without delay, and any cause of action they have would be against Dr. Ilao-
Oreta.
10. TC: failure of the doctor to arrive on time was not intentional, awarded Eva Marie only actual damages in the total
amount of P9,939 and costs of suit. It found no adequate proof that Noel had been deprived of any job contract while
attending to his wife in the hospital.
11. CA: found Dr. Ilao-Oreta grossly negligent
Tortious
Act:
A missed laparoscopic procedure appointment
What is
it?
NOT culpa-contractual (because no gross negligence)
Legal
Basis:
"Gross negligence" implies a want or absence of or failure to exercise slight care or diligence, or the entire
absence of care. It evinces a thoughtless disregard of consequences without exerting any effort to avoid
them. It is characterized by want of even slight care, acting or omitting to act in a situation where there is a
duty to act, not inadvertently but willfully and intentionally with a conscious indifference to consequences in
so far as other persons may be affected.
Issue:
W/N Dr. Ilao- Oreta is guilty of gross negligence.
Held: No.
Ratio:
The records show that before leaving for Hawaii, Dr. Ilao-Oreta left an admitting order with her secretary for one
of the spouses to pick up, apprised Eva Marie of the necessary preparations for the procedure, and instructed the
hospital staff to perform pre-operative treatments. These acts of the doctor reflect an earnest intention to perform the
procedure on the day and time scheduled.
The records also show that on realizing that she missed the scheduled procedure, Dr. Ilao-Oreta, upon arrival in
Manila, immediately sought to rectify the same.
The evidence then shows that Dr. Ilao-Oreta, who had traveled more than twice to the United States where she
obtained a fellowship in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility was indeed negligent when she scheduled to
perform professional service at 2:00 p.m. on April 5, 1999 without considering the time difference between the
Philippines and Hawaii.
The doctor’s act did not, however, reflect gross negligence as defined above.
Although petitioner failed to take into consideration the time difference between the Philippines and Hawaii, the
situation then did not present any clear and apparent harm or injury that even a careless person may perceive. Unlike in
situations where the Supreme Court had found gross negligence to exist, petitioner could not have been conscious of
any foreseeable danger that may occur since she actually believed that she would make it to the operation that was
elective in nature, the only purpose of which was to determine the real cause of infertility and not to treat and cure a life
threatening disease. Thus, in merely fixing the date of her appointment with respondent Eva Marie Ronquillo, petitioner
was not in the pursuit or performance of conduct which any ordinary person may deem to probably and naturally result
in injury.
It bears noting that when she was scheduling the date of her performance of the procedure, Dr. Ilao-Oreta had just
gotten married and was preparing for her honeymoon,

and it is of common human knowledge that excitement attends
its preparations. Her negligence could then be partly attributed to human frailty which rules out its characterization as
gross.
The doctor’s negligence not being gross, the spouses are not entitled to recover moral damages.

(The following part of the ratio is on damages resulting from negligence.)
Neither are the spouses entitled to recover exemplary damages in the absence of a showing that Dr. Ilao-Oreta
acted in a wanton, fraudulent, reckless, oppressive or malevolent manner, nor to award of attorney’s fees as, contrary
to the finding of the Court of Appeals that the spouses "were compelled to litigate and incur expenses to protect their
interest," the records show that they did not exert enough efforts to settle the matter before going to court. (She just
talked to another doctor, not to Dr. Ilao-Oreta herself)
Finally, Dr. Ilao-Oreta’s prayer for the reduction of actual damages is well-taken. Article 2201 of the Civil Code
provides:
In contracts and quasi-contracts, the damages for which the obligor who acted in good faith is liable shall be those which
are the natural and probable consequences of the breach of the obligation, and which the parties have foreseen or
could have reasonably foreseen at the time the obligation was constituted.
In fixing the amount of actual damages, the Court of Appeals and the trial court included expenses which the
spouses incurred prior to April 5, 1999 when the breach of contract complained of occurred. The Court of Appeals also
included the alleged P300 spent on fuel consumption from the spouses’ residence at San Pascual, Batangas to the St.
Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City and the alleged P500 spent on food in the hospital canteen, both of which are
unsubstantiated by independent or competent proof. The only piece of documentary evidence supporting the food and
fuel expenses is an unsigned listing. As the fuel and food expenses are not adequately substantiated, they cannot be
included in the computation of the amount of actual damages.
The list of expenses cannot replace receipts when they should have been issued as a matter of course in business
transactions as in the case of purchase of gasoline and of food.
As extrapolated from the entries in the Statement of Account of spouses, P2,288.70 (the gross hospital charges
of P2,416.50 less the unused medicine in the amount of P127.80) was debited from the P5,000 deposit to thus leave a
balance of the deposit in the amount of P2,711.30, which the trial court erroneously denominated as "confinement fee."
The remaining balance of P2,711.30 was the amount refundable to the spouses.